Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/264

250 When Bernstein (who was too intelligent not to know what was the real spirit of his friends on the directing committee) announced that the grandiose hopes which had been raised must be given up, there was a moment of stupefaction; very few people understood that Bernstein's declarations were courageous and honest actions, intended to make the language of Socialism accord more with the real facts. If hereafter it was necessary to be content with the policy of social reform, the parliamentary parties and the ministry would have to be negotiated with—that is, it would be necessary to behave exactly as the middle classes did. This appeared monstrous to men who had been brought up on a catastrophic theory of Socialism. Many times had the tricks of the middle class politicians been denounced, their astuteness contrasted with the candour and disinterestedness of the Socialists, and the large element of artificiality and expediency in their attitude of opposition pointed out. It could never have been imagined that the disciples of Marx might follow in the footsteps of the Liberals. With the new policy, heroic characters, sublimity, and convictions disappear! The Germans thought that the world was turned upside dovn.

It is plain that Bernstein was absolutely right in not wanting to keep up a revolutionary semblance which was in contradiction with the real state of mind of the party; he did not find in his own country the elements which existed in France and Italy; he saw no other way then of keeping Socialism on a basis of reality than that of suppressing all that was deceptive in a revolutionary programme which the leaders no longer believed in. Kautsky, on the contrary, wanted to preserve the veil which hid from the workmen the real activity of the Socialist party; in this way he achieved much success among the poUticians, but more than any one else he has helped to intensify the Socialist crisis in Germany. The